ELT in Chinese General Senior High School: An Analysis of Chinese ELT Textbooks

Since the 1980s, English language proficiency has been considered as a crucial tool for China’s modernization and economic development and has been actively promoted within the education system (Adamson 2004; Vickers & Zeng 2018). Even though the status of English has become a debated topic within Chinese society in recent years, foreign language study, which means English in the majority of cases, is still one of the ‘three main subjects’ (san zhu ke 三主课) of the gaokao 高考, the Chinese ‘National College Entrance Examination’. Due to its crucial role in preparing students to sit the gaokao, this contribution focuses on Chinese general senior high school and the main analysis tool will be the ELT textbooks currently used in it. More specifically, the aim is to highlight an inherent inconsistency between the guidelines provided by the Chinese syllabus for high schools, called ‘curriculum standards’ (kecheng biaozhun 课程标准), and the nature of the tasks that are part of the English language test of the gaokao, which ultimately define the teaching practice in senior high school. As a result, the English textbooks currently used in China display a mixture of influences of both the Grammar-Translation Method, consistent with the nature of the gaokao and ultimately with the traditional Chinese teaching method, and the Communicative Approach, especially in the form of Task-Based Language Teaching (TBLT), promoted by the syllabus. In addition, the qualitative analysis of interviews with Chinese high school teachers will explore their attitudes, beliefs and preferences towards ELT in China. In doing so, this contribution attempts to contribute to the academic discussion about foreign language teaching and language policy.